Long Reads

It’s almost July, which means it’s time for our critically-acclaimed summer reading list, a list of books that, quite simply, we critics acclaim. Last summer, we gave you a list of novels artists love, just in time for your beach reading. This time around, we’ve provided our own mix, ranging from fiction on chatrooms and psychosis, and histories on New York and Elizabethan London.

Andrew O’Hagan, the once anonymous ghostwriter who collaborated with WikiLeaks Founder Julian Assange on his abortive 2011 autobiography, broke his long silence on the project this weekend. Putting to bed over 26,000 words on the subject of his months working with Assange, the hacker is described by turns as funny, lazy, courageous, paranoid, narcissistic, driven by spectacle, dishonest, and manipulative. The story focuses on the collapse of the one of the most high-profile books deals of recent times—2.5 million with the publisher Canongate.

Thanks to Martha Schwendener, this month’s Brooklyn Rail includes a long list of alternatives to the art world status quo from a wide variety of thinkers– Artforum editors, academia, activists, gender studies theorists, museums, co-ops, artists– just to name a few. It’s a nice change from last month’s crisis-themed edition. I’ve rounded up the must-reads from the first half, with more to come.